Thinking for Yourself
I am not going to tell you what is and what is not. I intend to raise questions you need to answer about your training. Hanshi Anderson told us that until we understand something, we should not change it. That means if we do not understand something, we should not do it differently. This is not contradictory. Your instructor thinks for you in the beginning. Later on, you need to think for yourself. I cannot count how many times I have shown something to see it immediately reinterpreted by beginner and senior alike. Each is adopting it to their way of thinking, maybe, but I question their understanding.


Attack
If you are attacked and not ready, you will probably do three things – move your head, reach your arms, and stumble on your feet. Making a person practice that stumble is a good preemptive strategy that, if done correctly, will help guarantee a victory or at least limit a loss. I use the 80-20 principle to explain that I want to deal with the greater odds. You can read this as “Your High Percentage”/”Your Low Percentage”.


Moving the Arms
You can move your arms up, down, left or right, circle upwards or downwards, or push your hand forward or pull it back. That is all. With these gestures, we can create the art of moving your arms. This art can be applied in dance, martial arts, hockey, pitching, swimming, performance art, or whatever. It is how you perform the movement and the value you place on your movement that makes it a martial art.


Loss
You can be defeated by how you think. If you break a pencil into two pieces, how many different parts are there? How many of you see 2? Well, I see three – beginning, middle, and end. Thank heaven, Hanshi Anderson did not twist the ends and connect them. Then again, what do I do with the student who sees five?


Gung Fu
Kwanmukan is based on karate jujitsu. Not Gung Fu. We have elements of Gung Fu, but we are not Gung Fu. Our basic training is not in how a Gung Fu person acts, performs, or thinks, so putting elements of Gung Fu into Kwanmukan (even if you saw Hanshi Anderson experiment with it) is simply putting a round hole into a square peg. It is an exercise in futility. Better to practice your Kwanmukan and let others wonder why you know Gung Fu. Some of the Gung Fuish Kwan Bu can be done effectively, but very few have mastered this. (Hanshi Anderson used Gung Fu rather than Kung Fu.)


Aging
It has been said that your martial arts change as you age. That is true. As you age, you lose flexibility and mobility. Because of this your techniques should change. Thus, standing jutsu (taijutsu) is good for those with bad knees who have trouble kicking or moving. They are not going to move in a fight, so they should study something that does not require a lot of movement. This is not to downplay those with physical problems, but karate is not always philosophical but down to earth. I desire to be the dangerous man.


Coming of Age
Some of us who have aged have been able to expand our skillset. Gung Fu-like movement comes naturally to us as our bodies are well trained to move in a manner best suited for our current situation. Thus, expanding our understanding of gravity and weight movement, isolated or in full, allows us to create extreme power with little effort.


Back to the Anderson Cup
We can discuss all the various things or martial arts concepts that are special or secret training. But the Kwanmukan does not hide these under esoteric terms. Correct Kwanmukan trains your body to do these “secrets,” whether you know these ”secret” movements were missing or not. So, it is all about the basics. You need the basics for how you move to move at least one way correctly. Then, understand how the other ways are simply adjustments (albeit in some actions rather complicated adjustments to learn) of the prime movement.


Kwan-kong Chung Kwan Basic
Thus, we get to the performance of the Kwan-kong Chung Kwan. To do this kata correctly, you have to have the correct basics. That means your warmups, line drills, stances, and weight transfers must be teaching methods (breaking down the whole into learnable parts) to enable a student to learn Kwan-kong Chung Kwan. A karate foundation works well with the Efforts (Kwanmu First, Second, and Third) but not with Kwan Kong Chung Kwan, yet similar movements exist. Why? Interestingly, you can use the Efforts to help create the foundation for Kwan-kong Chung Kwan in an advanced practitioner.


Dan Ranking
I consider beginners as 3rd dan and below. Advanced as 5th or 6th, depending on the skills of the person.

Interrupting Training

It is okay to interrupt your training as long as you come back. Do not expect consideration for time away.


Esoterics
It’s about the Practice, not the esoteric. Hanshi Anderson did esoterica because the other drove people away. But he was all about the practice.


Oyo
So what if I do not know oyo? I do not understand the nuances of the Japanese language. I did not grow up with oyo. Do I spend much time contemplating it? Listening to someone talk about it? I am not interested in any of that. I am interested in the doing, and that is my karate. I know what “gringle, grungle, snort” means. I know what “If you kill my dog, I’ll kill you cat” means. I grew up with that. I understand how to move my body and perform my karate. Not someone else’s. I have gotten good at helping other people find their karate. It can be all talk or all practice. (The two quoted phrases were common in Hanshi Anderson’s early lectures and best known by those who trained with him at the University of Akron.


Once upon YouTube
Oyo will do what? WHAT?




Epilogue
1) Karate is no different than any other sport, and

2) Karate is very different than any other sport.